Where the House of Commons committee erred was in concluding that because not everything happened as it should have in Pakistan, another root-and-branch review of the United Nations' humanitarian leadership was needed.

This proposal may end up weakening consensus around concrete measures for much-needed changes which are already under way, actually delay the implementation of the improvements which the House and the United Nations both want to see and distract attention from a serious problem: that the humanitarian system currently discourages collaboration and collective accountability for successes and failures.

The answer is to support the United Nations in the changes we are seeking to make so that we are the strong and strategic leader of humanitarian operations we ought to be.

And make no mistake: this leadership is needed. We are heading into a more dangerous, disaster-prone and complex future where humanitarian operations need to be more professional, cohesive, effective and accountable than ever before. Virtually everywhere I go, I hear calls for more creative United Nations leadership to make this happen.

After five years of evaluations and reforms, and particularly since the Haiti earthquake and Pakistan floods responses tested the system in new ways, we know what needs to happen.

Key to making operations work better is getting the right people on the ground with the right skills and experience, at all levels. Improvements are being made in the way we recruit and train the humanitarian leaders of the future. We are already seeing the rewards of that process and will see more in the years ahead.

The cluster approach – a way to organise the humanitarian organisations that contribute during major crises – has yielded better identification of what needs to be done, promoted stronger partnerships and improved the way aid is distributed. The overall approach is the right one, but as the implementation of the approach in Pakistan showed, it only works when clusters are properly run.

We are actively improving the leadership, management and functioning of the clusters, making them more decisive and action oriented. But we also need to find ways to include all those thousands of small non-governmental organisations, private organisations and militaries who play a role.

These reforms are important, but for improvements to really take hold – to ensure that when the next major disaster strikes our response is closer to what is needed – a much more fundamental shift in attitude and mindset among all humanitarian partners and donors must happen.

The present humanitarian system with all its strengths and its weaknesses was created by member states. It is time to turn attention to this underlying systemic problem, and to give the world's humanitarian leaders the power to fix it.